Bookends (22 page)

“Emilie? Emilie!”

She snapped to attention. “W-what? Did you say something?”

“Yes. Your name.” Even soaking wet, his grin was dangerously appealing.
“About four times. Whatcha thinkin’ about, Dr. Getz?”

“If you must know, men.”

“Oh,
men
is it? Plural, then. Not one man in particular?”

She swiped her scarf at him. “Fishing for compliments is most unbecoming.”

He ducked under her umbrella, putting them nose to nose. “But it’s perfect fishing weather.”

If Jonas wanted to play Go Fish, she’d provide the bait. “What is it you hoped to hear me say?”

“That I’m the first man who—”

“Well!”
The nerve!
She gasped and backed up, taking her umbrella with her. “Jonas Fielding, you are
not
the first man to kiss me!”

He raised a hand in protest. “I’m not suggesting such a thing. You’re thirty-six—my age—and hardly an ingenue, Emilie. Of course you’ve been kissed. Probably better, too.”

Probably not.
She sniffed and tried to look nonchalant. “You’re the first man who did
what,
then?”

“Made you laugh.”

She wasn’t laughing now.

She was mad.
Or hurt.
With some women, it was hard to tell the difference.

Her sorry excuse for an umbrella was tipped back, rain was dripping off that nice, soft nose of hers, and—unless his eyes were deceiving him—steam was coming out her little porcelain ears.

“How d-dare you s-suggest …!” She was sputtering. He liked sputtering women, liked seeing a gal come unglued once in a while.

Emilie tried again to make her point. “Why, I’ve … I’ve laughed many times in my life. The very idea!”

Yup. Mad.
“How many times?”

She didn’t have a wooden ruler, but she shook the umbrella at him with exactly the same vehemence. “Plenty! Dozens. Hundreds.”

“Hundreds of laughs? With a man you cared about?”

“Yes! Well, maybe not … well.” She let out an exasperated groan. “The point is, you did not introduce me to my sense of humor.”

He dipped his forehead toward hers. “When we met on Christmas Eve, I got the idea you and your sense of humor were, shall we say, estranged.” He pretended not to see her eyes become slits, her nostrils flare. “That’s why I’m on a mission to make sure the two of you are on speaking—er, laughing—terms again.”

Her narrowed eyes popped back open. “A
mission?
”

Uh-oh. Shouldn’t have been so up-front about that one.

“That’s right.” Jonas nodded, rushing to explain himself. “It’s a heavenly calling.” He lifted one metal tip of her umbrella and invited himself underneath it. “Emilie, I have the challen—uh, the
privilege
of showing you what
fullness of joy
means.”

Her anger dissolved into shock. “Are you saying I’m a
project
of some sort to you?”

“Nope. I’m saying the Lord has brought you into my life for a reason I don’t fully comprehend.”

“Ohh.” Her expression softened.

“Part of that reason is helping you lighten up.”

When she started to disagree, he barely touched her lips with one finger, amazed at how quickly it silenced her. “Don’t argue with me. You and I both know your shrieking-banshee sled ride down Kissel Hill was the most fun you’ve had in ages.”

She shrugged and averted her eyes, fighting a smile. After two beats of silence, she said in an even voice, “You win. Was I supposed to laugh at the Christmas Bird Count, too?”

“In theory.” He lifted her chin, eager to see her hidden smile, longing to find forgiveness in her eyes. “Except I blew it. I’m truly sorry, Emilie.”

Her smile was in place. So was a glimmer of understanding.

“I know.” She eyed him, her breath coming out in frosty puffs. “Joy is more than laughter, though. I find joy in lots of things. My work, for starters.”

“Work is good.” He nodded, wanting to affirm yet press forward. “But
fullness
of joy is only found in Christ.”

A shadow fell across her features. “Do you really believe that?”

“I do.” Sensing her pulling away from him, he quickly added, “Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love my work. But when it all shakes down, only my relationship with the Lord matters.”

“I see.” She paled visibly. “Then religion is very important to you.”

“Nope. Not religion. Relationship.”

She frowned. “You’re talking about semantics.”

“I’m talking about my best friend.”

“Ah.” She turned on her heel and aimed her steps toward the Explorer parked on Main. “Jonas, it’s too nasty outside to debate such subjects in the freezing rain.”

“Agreed.” He caught up with her and slipped his arm around her shoulder before she could protest. If words couldn’t convince her, a piece of his history might. “I’d like to show you one thing on the way home, though. Okay with you?”

Emilie nodded, not saying another word until they were back in the Explorer, greeted by a dry, wagging golden retriever in the front seat.

“All the way back, Trix,” he said firmly, starting the engine. He flicked on the heater and headed east on Main, then north on Oak, where their destination—a concrete bridge—waited straight ahead.

He cleared his throat, surprised at the tightness there, and pointed through the windshield. “That’s your Lititz Run, Emilie. Definitely running.” Steering his vehicle to a spot a safe distance from the creek’s edge, he parked and left the headlights trained on the raging stream overflowing its high banks.

As he stared at the water spilling over the roadway, long-buried memories washed over him with the same chilling effect.
Give me strength here, Lord. You know where I hope to go with this.

“This is what you wanted to show me?” She peered out the window, clearly confused.

Gripping the wheel, he willed himself to say what needed to be said, for her sake and his own. “It was a day like this …” He swallowed hard and tossed his head back to stem the threat of tears that rarely came but did so now without warning. “A day like this when I lost my father.”

Emilie’s head pivoted toward him. “Lost him?”

He nodded slowly. “I was twelve. Carl Kreider and I were walking home from school in a wintry rainstorm—icy cold, like this stuff—and came to a swollen creek. As usual, we were behaving like fools, stomping in the puddles, dangling over the rail, when Carl lost his balance and fell in the water.”

“Oh, Jonas, how awful!” Her face was ashen. “What did you do?”

“The current carried him downstream faster than I could find a way to get to him. That’s when my dad—a teacher, did I tell you that?”

She nodded. The sympathy in her eyes was almost more than he could bear.

“Anyway, Dad was driving home from school, looking for us, knowing we should have waited and caught a ride with him. He pulled over, saw the whole scene, and, before I could stop him, jumped into the creek to save Carl.”

“And … he
drowned?
” Emilie gasped, pressing back against the seat in horror. “Oh, good Lord!”

“The Lord is more than good.” Jonas closed his eyes, fighting the old doubts that still surfaced on occasion. Like today, of all days. He pressed on, determined to convince not only Emilie, but himself. “The Lord used my dad to save Carl’s life.”

For a moment, she seemed to hold her breath. “But what about your father? Couldn’t God have spared his life, too?”

Jonas’ head dropped toward the steering wheel, his forehead landing on one clenched fist. How could she know that was the question that had haunted him for two dozen years?

Nathan held his head in his hands and wept.

It was gone.
Gone.
All five thousand dollars of his brother’s money, gone in one disastrous afternoon.

At the hotel front desk Monday morning, he’d sliced open the envelope with trembling hands, almost kissing the check.
Thank you, brother!
He’d waited impatiently at the bank window until it opened at 9:30, all set to buy another cashier’s check to send to Cy.

Then it hit him.
He’d double it!
He’d hit another trifecta and turn that five grand into ten. Maybe even have some spare dollars to tide him over for another week’s room and board.

But double or nothing turned into nothing. The greyhounds he’d picked might as well have been running the opposite direction on the track. Modest bets turned to bigger ones, until in desperation he put everything in his wallet on the last race.

And lost it all.

It had cost him a whole night’s sleep.

It would cost him a whole lot more.

He couldn’t call Cy and tell him there wouldn’t be a check this week. He couldn’t call Jonas and tell him he needed more money. He couldn’t call the twins, nor could he call his mom anymore.

And he sure couldn’t call his dad.

Nathan exhaled, frustration and anxiety turning his stomach inside out.
Coffee.
He needed caffeine, something to jolt him into action, get his brain working. Wiping away the last of his tears, disgusted with his pity party, he fired up the small coffeemaker, splashing water everywhere as he aimed for the slotted opening on top with a shaky hand.

Not coffee.
He needed something stronger.

His mother’s voice echoed in his addled brain:
“Your father never touched liquor, Nathan Fielding. You’d be honoring his memory if you did likewise.
”

Sorry, Dad.

Nate almost never thought about his father. Not the last few years, baking in the Nevada desert. Not now, basking in the Florida sunshine.

Ten minutes later,
Good Morning America
changed all that.

He was channel surfing—a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee in one hand, the hotel’s remote in the other—when a news story flashed on screen about Monday’s flooding in the Northeast.

Pennsylvania. Maryland.
Delaware.

In an instant, he was five years old again. A rainy day in February. An overflowing creek near home. His mother’s agonized, tearstained face. The terrible news: “Nathan, your father drowned today.”

Jim Fielding, the big man with the dark hair and the stern look and the soft voice, gone forever.

It was Jonas’ fault.

At least, that’s what Jonas kept saying, until Mother grabbed him by both shoulders and gave him a good shake. “It is
not
your fault, son,” she’d sobbed, pulling Jonas tightly against her. “Your father died like he lived, giving his life for others. He’s a hero, Jonas. God’s man to the end. You couldn’t have stopped him from jumping in that creek if you tried.”

The way Carl told it, Jonas
had
tried, nearly drowning himself in the process. He’d helped pull Carl to safety, then turned around just as his exhausted father was swept into the swift current, dragged under the icy waters and downstream until he disappeared from sight, leaving his twelve-year-old son stunned and shaking on the frozen banks.

Nate fell back against the scratchy upholstery, battling a wicked hangover, wiped out by the vivid memories. Of Jonas stumbling through the kitchen door, dripping wet, blue from the cold and red from running. Jonas, gasping for air, begging his mother to call the police. Crying that Dad … that Dad …

Nate shouted an expletive and threw the remote across the room. “If he was your man, God, where were you?
Where were you?
”

“Where do you turn when you hurt, Emilie?”

That’s what Jonas had asked her Monday, parked beside the overflowing banks of Lititz Run.

And there she’d sat, dumbfounded. Had she ever felt that kind of pain, that deep a loss? “I immerse myself in my work until the disappointment goes away,” she finally said, realizing how shallow and flippant it sounded.

Even if it was honest.

Emotional situations drained rather than filled her, while her work—teaching, writing, doing historical research—replenished her soul to the brim.

When she confessed that to Jonas, he’d looked at her with an expression that could only be read as pity.

Pity!
She would not stand for it.

He was a nice man—very nice, when it came down to it—and their one on-purpose kiss had been warm and lovely—quite lovely, in fact—but Jonas Fielding was simply too inquisitive, too religious, too … 
something,
to suit her taste.

Contemplating God was all well and good, naturally. He created the earth and all that was in it, and deserved her attention every Sabbath. But Jonas’ description of a personal relationship of some kind with their Creator was another kettle of fish altogether.

And Emilie didn’t care for seafood.

She’d come to Lititz for two reasons only: to write a book and to rewrite history. Plunging into both efforts with renewed zeal, the rest of the week had flipped past her like pages in a textbook, filled with the minutiae of dates, names, and places—her stock-in-trade as an historian.

Not feelings—facts.

Not fuzzy emotions—solid evidence.

The reliable, unchangeable nature of such information gave her a sense of security and well-being that no relationship—human or divine—had ever come close to matching.